What's on your workbench?

[flyingfox4475]

I have been doing running repairs to a coupe of my loco's. My B17 was in need of a new cylinder block as the valve gear attached to it came away. thanks to the good people at Petersspares I now have completed the repair and it is running again. The second loco is my D49 Cheshire which lost it smoke box door. Not being able to locate a replacement door, I managed to locate a spare body on fleebay. That body is off a  D49 hunt class and not a shire class body so I will use the smoke box door off the hunt and fix it to my shire body.

other repairs have been to my fleet of Gresley teak coachs, fixing broken parts. Now all fixed.

[96RAF]

Pulled apart my Class 56 R2645X to help trace the PCB wiring for another topic on DCC and found a broken wire on one of the bogies (that's not easy to get at) and in tracing the lighting logic I managed to blow the red led at one end.

 

For anyone else modifying lights on this model please note that there a white and red led in each end of the body feeding the exterior light 'lenses' by plastic light pipes, but the associated current controlling resistors are on the loco main PCB so do not apply inappropriate voltages direct to the body contacts to test the lights, else you will blow the smd leds.

 

Getting at them is a destructive process in that you have to separate the drivers console from the side window glazing (glued together), then you have to extract the led sub board from the drivers console (more glue and soldered to the contact springs), and then try to replace these tiny leds.

 

I have not been able to find either a part number for the console, or a source for it on line so if you kill an led then the only fix so far is to replace the smd led on the sub PCB.

 

No doubt other locos are of the same build type so take care when fiddling with their lights.

Rob 

[96RAF]

If anyone else ends up with blown smd leds such as these then they are package 0603 (1608) size 1.6mm x 0.8mm available from many component suppliers such as RS and Rapid but not Maplins.

Rob

[LY shunter]

Well just of the workbench a shunters truck made from a Cambrian kit

I have added  red and white led lamps

The lamps are wired to all 4 wheels

The truck is permanently wired and fixed to the pug so that I have pickups on all 8 wheel to give better running/media/tinymce_upload/dc0203c0e89269b77741f996fdd25351.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/5a04dc90e4c7dfd5660761637587392e.jpg 

[Buz]

hi l&y shunter

What breed are the slate trucks ?

Sack your shunter he is wearing a green shirt or jumper this is not permited nor is red or yellow colored clothing

permited to be worn as it could be mistaken for a flag indication.

Dependant on colours used on maintenance staff flags other colours may also be banned from being worn for the same reason

regards John

[Twintop]

Repairs to locos as follows

Hornby 8F - this has the annoying problem of just stopping working. Off comes the body, I twiddle the wires on the top of the motor and then it works fine - but no idea what or where the issue is, It has happened twice now. Also replaced the broken rear coupling - with the one in a plastic bag in the box meant for the front. 

Araldite to the rescue on a Bachmann Royal Scot - a horizontal piece of plastic supporting valve gear had broken off - seems OK after the "repair"

And again for the Hornby class 110 DMU - the metal gear wheel was spinning and so removed it, cleaned the shaft and gears with meths, and araldited it on - seems OK - had it running for at least 20 minutes. Not run this for about a year. As I have many locos no urgency to mend them until I get several out of service.

 

 

    

[Jeff Mennell]

A squealing HST 125 awaiting a gear shaft lube.

[81F]

hi l&y shunter

What breed are the slate trucks ?

 

Hi Buz and l&y shunter,

 

Hope you don't mind me trying to identify the slate wagons. I think the two coupled together are the smaller Festiniog Railway trucks made by Parkside-Dundas. The other I think is possibly a a Colin Ashby Talylyn or Corris. I'm not sure which but I do have a couple in the bottom of a box under my workbench waiting to be built - been there ever since I bought them from the Talylyn possibly either 10 or 20 years ago!

[LCDR]

 I have started building a model of the house where I spent my childhood. An essay in plastic card it is well on the way to completion. When finished I hope to incorporate it somewhere on the layout and although it was not actually located where my layout is based I am calling the shots, so it goes in!!

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[Gordonvale]

House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, half the floor was missing, and we were all huddled together in one corner for fear of falling.

[LY shunter]

hi l&y shunter

What breed are the slate trucks ?

 

Hi Buz and l&y shunter,

 

Hope you don't mind me trying to identify the slate wagons. I think the two coupled together are the smaller Festiniog Railway trucks made by Parkside-Dundas. The other I think is possibly a a Colin Ashby Talylyn or Corris. I'm not sure which but I do have a couple in the bottom of a box under my workbench waiting to be built - been there ever since I bought them from the Talylyn possibly either 10 or 20 years ago!

The 2 coupled together are meridian models of Penrhyn Quarry

The single one is a whitemetal kit of unknown make

Looked in my to make box and found I have 40 unmade narrow gauge wagons to make

 ( frightened myself )

Do we all buy kits and never get round to making them 

Good news is that a pack of 5 cost me £9 95p ,cost now seems to be £7 each

 

[81F]

 I dread to think how many 009 wagon kits I have. When the FFestinig Railway were revamping their shop probably around 10tears ago I cleared a bargain bucket out without really looking! I also have some more 009 loco kits!

 

However on my work bench today a GWR Lima Railcar, or rather almost 3. The first is my original no. 22 which runs well but has an obviously  brushed paint job and no couplings (a detailing project from my late teens or 20s) Ran well when I last tried but no longer passes muster when next to my Hornby and othe Lima versions. The second is a no 34 parcels railcar bought as a non runner which was destined to provide bogie parts (to replace the couplings) and a new body but there was some damage to the body which I did not scover until I started to take it appart. The 3rd is a body for no 29 with Gread coat of arms western on the side rather than the roundle which will provide a new body.

 

I also have a lighting unit I hope to fit along with a chip. 

[Buz]

Hi 81F

thanks

the scourge of the hobby the pile of unmade kits in my case its buildings

and a few local made kits of puffing billy rollingstock

regards John

[Buz]

Hi LC&DR

Nice are you going to go to the exorbitant expence of getting a 1/76 scale mini you 3D printed to stand in the garden

surveying the private empire 😆

Having gone to all that effort you just have to put a really nice garden around it complete with the garden railway.

Who cares about the mixed time frame and the fact the house movers moved the model house to another part of the country 😆

regards John

[LCDR]

 Not a Mini, too late for my chosen  era, 1950s, and we never had a car until the 1970s when my mum got a Reliant Regal van (lime green NOT yellow!) but the next door neighbour had a Ford Popular E103 (they both worked for the GPO so were better paid than my dad who sold flowers in Covent Garden Market) but I shall have to construct a garage for it because  it always lived in there, and only came out on Sunday!

 

Yes I shall model the the gardens, but the only garden railway was laid in Hornby Tinplate which quickly got rusty and a Bowman's live steamer which ran too fast and fell off on the 2 foot radius curves!  I shall also need to model my dad's home-made corrugated iron shed and the budgie aviary which he built behind it.

 

[Wolseley]

I have several matters that I have to do at the moment, but the one presently "on my workbench" is the rescue of a Hornby Dublo 3 rail "Duchess of Montrose.

A while ago I purchased, on eBay, a Duchess of Montrose (minus tender), with the intention of fitting the mechanism to a Hornby (as in present day Hornby) maroon streamlined Coronation body.  From the photos and description, I was expecting the body to be of little use and probably destined for the bin.

After I detached the chassis, I looked more closely at the body, to find it was in much better condition than I was expecting. Aside from a few scuffs on the raised edges (most of the orange lining on the footplate had gone), one otherwise undamaged smoke deflector that has lost a bit of paint and gained a bit of rust, and one short scratch on the boiler, it is rather good - most of what appeared to be deterioration and damage in the photographs turned out to be dirt.

It is also one of the Montroses finished in gloss during the brief period Dublo applied gloss finishes to their locomotives.  It's the first gloss Dublo locomotive in my collection, and I rather like the finish.  The body is too good to consign to the dustbin, so I got myself a Duchess tender in good condition (and a gloss one at that!) and now the restoration commences.  I will have to give it another name, as I already have a near mint Duchess of Montrose.

 

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[Postman Prat]

How are you going to make the budgies  -  I can't think of anyone who makes them. (Don't quote Budgie toys!)

[Buz]

Hi Postman Prat

Well Busch might do budgies they do butterflies in suposedly HO scale.

But by the time the grey stocking is stretched and attached for the bird wire I don't think an empty aviary would be that noticeable.

You never know being an Australian native bird one of the Australian manufacturers might do budgies.

You can get sulfur crested cockatoo's in HO scale 😆

regards John

[LCDR]

 In real life you could hear them but rarely saw them, unless you looked really hard !  Same with the goldfish in his pond, he made when they moved to Westmoreland, the fish stayed deep under the dark green water. Saved them from unwanted attention of a passing heron or two! Our cat like to watch the birds though.

 

I shall have enough work on to make a representation of all his fruit and veg growing, the fruit trees and rose trellis. And his grassless lawn, it WAS meant to have grass but after my brother and I had staged numerous battles with Britain's soldiers, cowboys and indians, knights and other plastic combatants, played football and ridden our bikes in  races it was mostly mud. 

[LCDR]

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Well the building is substantially finished, I will leave it for a bit and return to work on my station buildings before I tackle the garden.

[RB51]

Very nice LC&DR. R-

[LCDR]

 Thank you Roger.

[Bulver]

looks very smart,LC, bears a great similarity to many of the properties built in the 1930s in Metroland.  Our local Wetherspoons displays a range of pictures of these 'villas' and also copies of advertisements similar to those in the book behind the model.  Living in so-called 'Metroland', I have a great affection for the styles of properties of the '20s and '30s.   

 I wish I had your skills, look forward to seeing the completed model.

 

Rod

[81F]

Still on my work bench is my Lima GWR Railcar.

 

First step was to salvage the motor bogie out of my original 22 and test it. - still worked after sitting dorment for around 20 years first in a damp carrage then in a dry loft!

 

I then removed the motor bogie from number 34 this had one of those CD motor conversions but did not work and what I thought was just a flat peice of plasticatd with some circuitry stuck on it with a sticky fixer. As the weight was a little rusty, I substituted the weight from number 22 and fitted 22s motor bogie using the frames from 34. Now with a complete chassis I put it on the layout, turned up the power and...

 

... Nothing happened! Took the bogie out and looked closely. One of the carbon brush springs seemed to have gone missing. How I do not know but I may have dislodged the retainer when unsoldering a grain of wheet bulb I had fitted to illuminate the interior of 22. Put a new spring in but still no joy.

 

I eventually found that in taking the frames on and off the soldered joint between the phospher bronze pickup and power wire had broken. As things looked a little tarnished I cleand off most of the old solder. pollished the phospher bronze and tinned the pickup, wire and my finger! I would strongly advise missing out the tinning of the finger. It is compleatly unecessary for the job and it does hurt! After around ten minites running my finger under a cold tap, I reassembed the chassis and all worked though it will need oiling.

 

On Friday the interior came from eBay and I am now awaiting a DCC chip. I also need some body fixing screws as mine seemed to have gone missing. I have ordered some spare ones off eBay but these are for a Class 117, does anyone know if these will fit the GWR raiolcars? 

[Postman Prat]

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Well the building is substantially finished, I will leave it for a bit and return to work on my station buildings before I tackle the garden.

 

Looks very nice, LC. However, missing is a very young LC&DR looking out of the window !!!   😆